Tell us a little bit about your most recent Untour.
We stayed at the Seiwald apartment in Kuchl, Austria for three weeks. We found out about UnTours a long time ago, after we’d taken a bunch of tours…and we found that we like staying in one place and traveling at our own pace and to our own interests a lot better than any tour we’ve ever been on. We’ve been to Switzerland with UnTours as well, and we really like getting to know a locale, and a village. We love food, in fact, every time we go to Europe, we PIG out! But luckily we’re hikers as well, so we usually end up losing weight, and getting to eat delicious food!
What is your favorite UnTours memory?
We have a lot of good memories, but they nearly always have something to do with getting to know the people in the places we go. We can’t say enough about what great hosts the Seiwalds were. I know that you often hear people say “They treated us like family.” but the Seiwalds really did. Their daughter was in college, and when Terry and her husband were away for a few days, the daughter would stop by each day to make sure we were doing well, and to see if there was anything we needed. After awhile we got to be such good friends that on one of our last days, she’d been working on an English assignment for school, and she brought it up to us, so we could check it over!
We got to talking about genealogy with the Seiwalds. (It’s an interest of ours.) and it turned out that Terry’s father-in-law, who lives with them, had written several books, one about genealogy. Finding that we had a mutual interest in genealogy, along with the fact that Babs speak some German, meant we were invited to have dessert with the father. He’d written several books and we were able to communicate and his stories (Including those of being a soldier in WWII) were fascinating.
Kuchl is such a delightful village. I (Alfred) was born in 1929. Living in Kuchl for a few weeks, made me feel in some ways like I had stepped back in time. People know you, and they know each other, and they seem genuinely happy to be able to help. One day, we had come back from a trip, and we were going to stop by the butcher shop to get something for supper. We had just missed the closing time. We peered in the window and could see that we were a little late, and they’d closed up shop. We turned away and thought we’d just have to figure out something else out for our supper. And here, we were half way down the street, and we hear the “yoo, hoo”….the butcher had seen us looking in the window, recognized us from our one other visit and told us to come in….and they’d be happy to get us what we needed. Don’t see that happening very much anymore. That’s what I mean about stepping back in time.
How is taking an Untour different from other ways of traveling?
You get to to take your time. I can’t tell you how many times when we were on scheduled tours, we went to Salzburg seeing this church or that. On an Untour, we’d go Salzburg again and again, as well, but to go see what WE wanted to see, not what was on anyone else’s schedule. That and the fact that Untour has picked some really great spots. Reuti in Switzerland (Chalet Diana Upper is our favorite) and the Seiwalds in Kuchl…well, it doesn’t get any better than these spots.
If you could describe an Untour in just 3 words, what would they be?
- Interaction with people
- Food (choosing your own)
- Independence